Thursday, February 24, 2011

Question of the Day

-- How many of them support the Republican Party, lean Republican, or are actively involved with the GOP?

As Mark Potok, the editor of the SPLC's Intelligence Report, explains:

Far-right extremists remain highly energized, even as politicians across
the country co-opt many of the radical ideas and issues that are
important to them. This
success in having their voices heard in the political arena, where they
have long occupied the fringe of conservative thought, might eventually
take the wind out of their sails, but so far we're not seeing any sign
of that.

Hardly surprising, what with the GOP moving further and further to the right and turning the radical right into its new mainstream as it descends deeper and deeper into extremism and madness.

2 Comments:

I was posting earlier today on a conservative site. He was prognosicating the GOP nomination for 2012. Being a mainstream, Wll Street Republican, he was focused on the likes of Barbour, Romney, and for different reasons, Giuliani.

"Last time around, Romney had a very hard time with the Religious Right. This time around he’s going to have a very hard time with the Religious Right and the TEA Party movement, putting him at an even greater disadvantage than before. Even if he could win the nomination, it could be only to lose the general election as the party’s base right stays home on election day. The GOP has a real problem: much of the base right is uneasy with the war machine and the corporatocracy, two pillars of the GOP. They really have no top candidate that anyone can even imagine who can assuage their concerns.

Anyone could rise out of this. It will be interesting to see. Bachmann, usually not the keenist rhetorician, made a very important point in a recent speesh that is telling of how the GOP leadership is trying to play this problem. She essentially said the GOP must unite the Deficit Hawks, with the War Hawks, with the Religious Right. Right there we can see that the leadership does acknowledge these rifts, though are careful to keep the message channeled through those who can speak to those disparate factions. Notice she says nothing about the Wall Street Republicans who really run the show. It is under their auspices that the GOP wishes to see these factions fief. If they can manage that - Romney or maybe Barbour wins. If they can not, then it will be almost anyone else."

The GOP, long famously homogenous, is sort of a Big Tent these days. There are serious concerns about the vast economic/military empire. The libertarians have grown more consistant on social matters. (I didn't mention Ron Paul above, but he's won two CPACs in a row). There are even concerns about the police state and, most interesting of all, a growing mistrust of corporate America and the very rich.

On the other hand, the fringe right can be dangerous and will only lose on the national stage.

The GOP leadership has no choice but to somehow rhetorically assuage these people while ignoring their crazy agenda, or Obama will be president until 2016. In a sad way, I hope that happens. It's the lesser of two evils. I'd rather the GOP further radicalizes than some sleazy moral vacuum like Romney or Barbour become president.

1. There is no legal definition for “hate group,” which is why even the FBI does not track “hate groups.”

2. The SPLC uses the deliberately meaningless term “hate groups” in its fund-raising propaganda precisely because it allows them to denigrate their perceived opponents without accusing them of any actual crimes.

3. The “Hate Map” is a fund-raising tool, nothing more. It provides no information whatsoever on the alleged groups, in fact, the SPLC didn’t even bother to make up locations for 262 of the groups; that’s 26% of the total.

In many states the percentage of phantom "groups" runs as high as 80-100%. Many of the alleged “groups” are listed twice in the same location.

4. Since the SPLC is the sole arbiter of the meaningless “hate groups” label, AND because SPLC fund-raising is directly tied to creating the illusion of an ever-increasing threat, it is in their direct financial interest to raise the numbers each year.

Last year the SPLC took in $31 million donor-dollars in donations and earned $26 million in interest on its bloated “Endowment Fund.” That’s $57 million dollars for last year alone. Since 2003, the SPLC has taken in more than a third of a BILLION dollars in tax-free cash, and yet the number of “hate groups” always goes up.

http://wp.me/pCLYZ-82

5. The most ironic (read: "hypocritical") thing about the Southern Poverty Law Center is that NOT ONE of its top ten, highest paid executives is a minority.

http://wp.me/pCLYZ-7m

In fact, according to the SPLC's hometown newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, despite being located LITERALLY in the back yard of Dr. Martin Luther King's home church, the SPLC has NEVER hired a person of color to a highly paid position of power in its entire 40 year history.